


Redemption Interlude

by PhoenixGalaxy



Series: It Could Be Sweet [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Foul Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Day 1: Obsession, F/M, M/M, Regan Week 2018, Spoilers for 8x16, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel AU, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-21 02:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14906472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixGalaxy/pseuds/PhoenixGalaxy
Summary: Negan's day between the plot of 8x16 except the ending goes a bit differently.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 is apart of Regan Week but all else that follows is not specifically included.

The day began as any other would, with Negan jumping up in bed dripping sweat in the early morning, mind still reeling from the dreams that wrecked his sleep. He took a quick shower in a vain attempt at washing away the nightmare, hardened blue eyes dulling and pupils greying, before dressing in his usual attire, an ironed crisp white t-shirt, grey boxers, and too-big black jeans secured to his body by a brown belt. He took his time putting on his socks and easing his feet into his hulking black boots, drawing the strings tight and even on both feet before tying them up. He stood up tall and crossed the room to look in the mirror, instantly finding what he hated about himself reflected in the glass. This beard has to fucking go after this shit is over. The silver in his lengthened facial hair made him look like his dad and grandfather and he can’t stand that shit.

The men had been horrors to him since he was a child and the only reprieve he would get from them was when he was with his mother. She would read to him and play in his hair. They would dance around the house singing Eartha Kitt or Dean Martin songs. She would listen to his problems whenever it seemed the world was ending for him, and help him see that everything would be okay, at least until it wasn’t.

/Hey dipshit, Negan said to himself, get your ASS together. You are the fucking god of this place and the people need their Savior to help them keep their minds clear and worries on a healthy minimum given the state of this world that YOU are saving by helping these ungrateful pricks. And RICK the biggest prick of all needs to be taught a fucking lesson about fucking with the New World fucking Order./

He stretched to loosen his tense muscles before sliding on his leather jacket and gloves he held Lucille tight in his hand. This was gonna be the end of this shit; Rick was no longer to be a problem for him FUCK him AND his eyes, too pretty to exist in this world on a man so fucking gorgeous that Negan could never have. . . So fuck that fucker and his fucking people. He will die just like his friends deserved for killing an entire outpost of his people AND Little Timmy and the Dick Brigade. Even if the vision of his plush dick sucking lips hanging open as he gnawed at the air breaks Negan's heart. It must be done. He can’t let his people down any more or they would never trust him with their safety again.

He didn’t realize how bad letting Rick live the first time would turn out to be for his people until they stopped trusting him to do his job so he could help them do theirs’, goddamn high-quality motherfucking service. I serve you better leadership, a safe comfortable home, food, water, and electricity all you gotta do is work for me and I will work for you. How dare they? But no fucking problem. I will eliminate the fucking problem and restore the loyalty of my people in my ability to provide for them. I already taught Simon and his and of sorry sacks of shit the lesson. He was chomping away at nothing in front of the Sanctuary walls and his ass juice drinkers were dead. Now, Rick with his little girlfriend with the dreadlocks, Michonne, and the Widow will join him and all the other fuckers who fucked with my motherfucking world order...

 

The fight started and prematurely ended thanks to Eugene and his purposely piss poor bullets. When it came down to it, it was just him and Rick as it should have always been. It should’ve been him and Rick building the new world and raising Carl and Judith together. And it was all fucked to hell, now he may never wake up. He felt the blood flooding his lungs as his face heated from the force of trying to keep his brain running, eyes streaming tears as he looked at Rick’s face. The last thing he would ever see was Rick standing above him with his bluer-than-the-midday-sky eyes morose and red-rimmed with emotion for me? No, it’s not like he’d ever been sad for me, no one ever was... not since...

 

\--/-/--

 

Negan opens his eyes and finds himself nowhere. No grass, no sunlight, no darkness just nowhere. He looks around in any direction he can to find those baby blue eyes again but there is no direction, no north, no south, east or west. All he can see is his own body. His hands thin and blemish-free, which was alarming enough given the state of his right hand in the past few years alone, encouraging him to look down at his hairy chest and crotch to his dick, soft and resting on his big hairy balls. His eyes drifted further to his thin legs, gangly ankles, and slim feet only to startle from his examination as a thin red string gently tugged on his left pinky. 

He looked down at it tugging on him for a moment before he was pulled to follow it. It didn’t seem to move with any rhyme or reason but he followed it aimlessly, picking up in pace as the string started pulling harder on him with each step. After a while, he became irritated with the string and tried to slow down only for the string to roughly tug him along. He felt the muscles in his pinky straining against the force of the string, pulling his entire arm taunt with the feeling. It was stronger than anything little red string had any right to be. 

He walked on until his feet ached and his legs wobbled. The string wouldn’t stop pulling him even as he became breathless and felt he would pass out. The string pulled his left arm straight out in front of him, his muscles straining from the force of it until he wasn’t upright anymore. Suddenly, he was falling incredibly fast, headfirst into more nowhere. Bubbles of darkness appeared and flew past him just as soon as he saw them until the bubbles turned into faces and the faces started shouting at him. His grandfather told him he was a stupid motherfucker just like his daddy and he would never be good enough, not while he was still sucking on his momma’s teat like a newborn. His father telling him to man up and kick the shit out of the little assholes at his school who bullied him, telling him it was his fault they were even after him in the first place, reading singing songs and dancing around the house like a sissy. His mother’s face morphed into a sour look he’s never seen on her before. She didn’t speak at all but the look pierced something in his heart he hasn’t felt since the dead started eating people. He felt his lungs choke up, tears stinging his eyes as the faces started swirling, and the voices became too loud for him to ignore. 

He cried so hard he did not notice he stopped falling and the world stopped spinning. He laid in a puff of red string, crying until he felt someone playing in his hair. Lucille, he immediately recognized as their fingertips curled around the flesh where his ear met his head. He felt her thick thighs pillowed underneath his cheek and sighed as he smelled the honey, cocoa butter, and shea butter on her skin. Her free hand slid across the planes of his back as the other massaged his scalp and he missed her so much a fresh batch of tears spring free. He mumbled to her about how he was so sorry for everything, never should have made that stupid bat, you were too good for some lame shit like that. She held him until he stopped crying and held him longer still. He felt so raw and shattered open as if shards of his back were missing but her touch was a balm for the pain. A balm that sealed him back together once his parts flew back to his body, materializing from the nowhere. He smooshed his soft cheek to her thigh and sighed, the light, floaty feeling consuming his entire body. 

“You have to go back baby boy.” He did not want to hear any of that shit. He never wanted to be away from her again. “You go back and you make up for what you did.” He wanted to stay here with her, forever and ever, he failed his mission and he was ready to sleep in her arms for millennia.

“Find my family and know that when you love them, you are loving me.” No one could ever compare to you, Ma. He hummed against her flesh and kissed the tops of her thighs, making her chuckle as sweet as she ever was. His heart warmed at the sound and gave a chuckle of his own. I love you, he heard her say in his head, I love you too. Stubble grazed his skin as unfamiliar lips kissed his cheek and before Negan could respond, everything was gone.

\--/-/-- 

Negan gasped loudly as the air filled his lungs for the first time in seemingly forever. He rose out of the bed and swiveled around like a scared wolf as he took in his surroundings, his breathing heavy and rapid. He was in an unfamiliar hospital room wearing his usual white shirt, black jeans, and black boots, Lucille sat on the visitor’s recliner with his red scarf pillowed underneath her. He almost felt bad but holding the bat in his hands, he did not feel what he normally felt for it. Having spent time back in her arms, the bat meant nothing in comparison to the real Lucille, his ma. He had a job to do and if it meant being with her again, he would do anything. He listened hard but didn’t hear a damn thing, alerting him to the state the world was still in. He entered the bathroom to relieve himself and found the water still running. He took deep gulps of the liquid to moisten his esophagus until he heard a noise nearby. He quickly left the bathroom, grabbed Lucille and slowly made his way out of the room.

“Nurse! Nurse! Help!” 

Calling for a nurse? In this economy? Whatever happened must have rewound his ass straight back to the beginning of the shit show. He checked the hallway to make sure it was clear before following the voice to a door covered by a gurney. He nudged it out of the way and walked into the room while the man was in the bathroom. The door opened and the man came shuffling out until he caught sight of someone else in the room. The man looked into Negan’s hazel eyes in confusion. 

“Who are you? What’s goin' on? Where is everybody?” 

Negan wanted to laugh at the cosmic joke of it all. Here he’d been spending all this time trying to figure out how to get close to Rick and all he had to do was die? Hi-fucking-larious. Now here he was, explaining how shit hit the fan and preparing Rick for the worst once they exited the hospital. Yet, they found a fucking jackpot of shit right outside the hospital walls, a courtyard full of abandoned military grade weapons and machinery that will help them out with an assload of trouble. He jump-started one of them after packing away some guns and ammunition before Negan drove Rick home to find his family. Negan didn’t want to think too hard about what that meant but the idea of seeing Carl again after what happened made him feel better about this whole thing. Maybe he would still get a chance to be in the boy’s life, keep him safe; keep Rick safe. And find her family, whoever they were. Hell, with everything else gone, that’s all that mattered to him now.


	2. Dead Man's Blood (Ep. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A retelling of episode 2 with a few key plot changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any typos or grammatic errors.

Going through the city was a goddamn fool ass fucking rookie mistake but Negan couldn’t deny Rick anything when he looked at him with those sweet, trusting blue eyes, so different from the cold hatred that used to meet his gaze. As they drove past the traffic jam on the way into Atlanta, Negan made a mental note to come back and scavenge through it a bit for food and water, just in case. The further into the city they got, the more the bad feeling on the back of his neck flared up. He moved to the back of the Humvee and set up a machine gun just in case they were met with his suspicion, he figured Rick wasn’t going to stop now, even if Negan asked him pretty please with a wet kiss on top. 

Hell, he couldn’t blame the fucker when he sped into harm’s way following behind the helicopter that flew overhead. All of the ones at the hospital they found were destroyed to shit and this one was a rare fucking commodity. Negan silently thanked fuck they ditched Rick’s piss poor police cruiser for one of the Humvees outside of the hospital before they left or they would be further up shit creek than they already were. Doubly thank fuck that the military grade vehicle was chock full of weapons from grenades to machine guns, all they had to do was siphon gas from the other trucks in case their trip was longer than Rick expected. 

Negan’s suspicions proved true when their presence unintentionally alerted hundreds of dead fucks to his and Rick’s location. He managed to gun down over half of them, switching out the magazine then the first ran empty. To Negan’s disadvantage, the gun jammed and they were quickly surrounded. Rick pulled into an empty alley and they abandoned the Humvee with only the police bag of guns and Lucille on their person. They climbed up the ladder to the top of the building and assessed the shitty situation they were in before a young Asian man in a baseball cap approached them, looking to help. 

“Nice moves there, Rambo. Y’all the new officers? Come in to clean up the town?” The sight of the man silenced Negan’s snappy comeback in its tracks. Fucking fuckity fuck. He didn’t realize Rick had been with this guy since the beginning of the shit show and he’d gone and happily bashed his brains in upon meeting them and their people.

“That wasn’t our intention,” Rick responded.

“Yeah whatever, yee-haw. You’re still a couple of dumbasses.”

“I’m Rick, this is Negan,” Rick said, holding out his hand for the man to shake. He did and turned to Negan for the same treatment. Negan smirked broadly and placed his hand above Glenn’s, palm facing down to shake. 

“Glenn. Come on. My people are waiting.”

Rick and Negan followed Glenn down ladders and through several buildings until they reached an alley where Glenn called his people to help them with the dead in the alley. Negan joined the two in bashing in skulls before they walked into the department store and were met with a small angry blond woman pointing her gun in Rick’s face. 

“You sons of bitches,” Negan raised his bloodied Lucille to the woman’s face. The two men from the alley and another woman with them looked on in fear of what these newcomers could be.

“Woah there with your giant grapefruit sized balls. I’m not a fan of killing women but you better back the fuck up before I bash your fucking brains in, Ms. I’m-Too-Stupid-to-Turn-My-Safety-Off,” Negan said, promptly cracking the woman’s hardened exterior. She put down her weapon and moved away from Rick, shaking her head in frustration.

“We’re dead. All of us, because of you,” she said near tears.

“I don’t understand,” Rick said looking around at all of the new faces. Negan recognized the man who addressed Rick’s concern as someone from the outpost with baby Grace; Morales, if he remembered correctly. He didn’t usually give two shits about remembering the outpost workers’ names because he didn't see them much. Morales shoved Rick and Negan through the storage area to the front of the department store.

“Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know the key to scavenging? Survivng. You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it’s the O.K. Corral.” Rick’s eyes widened at the sight of dozens of walkers crowding the outer glass trying to break in.

“Every geek for miles around heard you popping off rounds,” said the black man in a flat cap.

“You just rang the dinner bell,” said the blonde woman.

“Get the picture now?” Morales asked sarcastically. They backed away from the glass as a walker began bashing a large rock against it to break it down.

“What the hell were you doing out there anyway?” the blonde woman asked.

“We were trying to flag the helicopter,” Negan responded.

“Helicopter? Man, that’s crap. Ain’t no damn helicopter,” the black man said.

“You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things. It happens,” the black woman said.

“I saw it,” Rick asserted. It tickled Negan’s balls to hear a hint of his Rick flashing through this innocent version.

“A hallucination we both saw? Not fucking likely,” Negan said in support of Rick’s claim.

“Hey, T-Dog, try that C. B. Can you contact the others?” Morales asked, deflecting from the previous conversation. The black man got on the request.

“Others?” Rick said perking up, “the Refugee Center?”

“Yeah, the Refugee Center. They’ve got biscuits waiting at the oven for us,” the black woman said.

“Got no signal. Maybe the roof,” T-Dog said. Before anyone could respond, they all heard someone firing shots from the roof.

“Oh no, is that Dixon?” the blond woman said in exasperation.

“What is that maniac doing?” Morales said as they all ran for the stairs.

“Hey, Dixon! Are you crazy?” Morales shouted at a man standing on the edge of the building with his rifle pointing down at the dead on the street. T-Dog, the black woman, blond woman, Glenn, Negan, and Rick followed in after him, witnessing the spectacle in front of them.

“Hey! Y’all ought to be more polite to the man with a gun, huh?” He jumped down from his shooting post with the gun still in his hand. “Only common sense.”

“A Man! You wasting bullets we ain’t even got, man! You bringing more of em down on our ass. Man, just chill!” T-Dog came at Dixon.

“Hey! Bad enough I’ve got this taco bender on my ass all day. Now, I’m gon take orders from you? I don’t think so, bro. That’ll be the day.” Dixon said smugly, pulling a sneer on T-Dog’s face.

“That’ll be the day? Is there something you wanna tell me?”

“Hey T-Dog, man just leave it. It aint worth it man. Now Merle, just relax, okay? We’ve got enough trouble,” Morales said, trying to defuse the situation.

“You wanna know the day? I’ll tell you Mr. Yo, it’s the day I’ll take orders from a nigg-”

A shocked silence descended on the group once more as a shot fired, removing a chunk of Merle’s skull and his left eye from his head. The redneck's body crumbled to the ground. All eyes turned to Negan as he lowered his pistol. The last thing he could stand next to rape was a fucking racist. 

“Glad to be rid of that sack of shit. Now, how the fuck can we get out of this shit hole without losing any more people?” Negan asked to break the silence. Thunder rolled through the air.

 

Glenn, Jacqui, and Morales went down to the sewer to find a way out while Negan stood watch with Rick and Andrea.

“Merle has been a problem in our camp since he and his brother arrived a few weeks ago,” Andrea said giving Negan a small reassuring smile.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, doll. I don’t feel bad about killing any racist pieces of shit. Only thing I hate more than a racist redneck dick cheese like that sloppy fuck is a fucking rapist,” Negan explained, swinging Lucille around at nothing in particular. Andrea nodded, accepting his logic as she turned to mind her business. 

“I hope that little show isn’t going to be a problem, officer,” Negan directed to Rick, challenging him with a devilish grin.

“The rules of the old world don’t apply anymore. I probably wouldn’t have killed him but what’s done is done.” Negan chuckled at his response before turning to look for a leather jacket to protect his skin from any biting teeth. He wondered how long it took Rick to become the ruthless killer Negan knew from before. Andrea struck up a conversation with Rick about her sister and finding a birthday present for her. Negan chuckled at her question about looting in the fucking apocalypse when the walkers burst through the first set of doors. Jacqui, Morales, and Glenn came running in from the sewers and they all headed upstairs to figure out a new plan. 

They decided to head for a delivery truck about six blocks down the road. The walker blood and viscera was for added security. Just before heading out to retrieve the truck, Negan found just what he was looking for in the employee break room. He shrugged off the gut jacket to put on the leather one beneath and redressing. Rick, Glenn, and Negan shuffled through the city while the rest of the group observed from the roof of the department store. The storm clouds rolling in were worrisome but they had weapons just in case shit hit the fan. And oh boy did that shit hit the fucking fan. Of course, it started raining when they were just yards away from the gate and the three of them had to make a break for it as the smell of dead man’s blood washed away, alerting the walkers to their presence. They made away with the truck just in time. 

Rick drove around until they found a red sports car to use to distract the walkers. Glenn drove away in the sports car with Negan on the passenger side while Rick drove around to retrieve the rest of Glenn's group. Negan went with Glenn, fully intending to get the Humvee before they all escaped the city. Glenn stopped the car a block away from the truck with only three walkers around them and Negan jumped out to kill them and use their blood and guts to get to the Humvee. Once he was covered, Glenn drove away and Negan ran for the truck. Once he got there, he found only a few walkers still around it. He figures the rest lost interest when the redneck dickhead was shooting walkers down from the roof. Negan quickly kills them before stripping off the leather jacket and driving away with the Humvee. As much as he wanted to keep the jacket, it was two sizes too big and impaired his mobility to the point of being uncomfortable as Lucille kept getting caught in the sleeves. He met up with Rick at the traffic jam and followed behind him to the group’s camp. He shakes his head at the utter bullshit he just went through with a smile on his face. 

“There is never a dull moment with Rick fucking Grimes,” Negan said aloud to Lucille, who sat on the passenger side. It wasn’t ten minutes before Glenn caught up to the motorcade. Negan flagged him down and the vehicles stopped. Negan jumped out and turned off the car alarm to avoid attracting any more unwanted trouble. They continued on their journey. Not long after driving away from Atlanta, he found himself following them down a mountainside where he saw a group of nearly fifty people living out in the open without many forms of protection from the dead. Shit, it was a wonder these people lasted this fucking long. The mountains and sheer luck were probably the only reason they were all still alive. Negan parked the Humvee behind Rick’s truck to jump out of the vehicle and join Rick. The look on his face alone told him he was a bit nervous about meeting this new group to find his family wasn’t with them. Rick’s worries were quickly stomped out as he looked out at the group and saw a little boy with his dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. Negan caught sight of the little boy and felt his throat close up. Fucking Carl. Teeny tiny little baby Carl.

“Dad!!! DAD!!!” The little boy shouted and ran towards him and Rick. A large chunk of Negan wished the boy was addressing both him and Rick when he said it. Negan felt his heart warm at the sight of Rick picking up his son and holding him tight. The feeling quickly turned sour as Rick embraced a thin brown-haired woman as well. She must be Carl’s mother. Negan flinched as he remembered what Carl said about her when he was touring the Sanctuary with Negan. As much as he wanted Carl to see him as a parental figure, the boy deserved to have as much time with his mother and father as he could get. If memory served him correctly, she wouldn’t be around for very much longer. Hell, almost everyone in this group was dead or gone by the time Negan met Rick the first time around.


End file.
